NHS Technology – Being Open To Open Source

For three years Wayne Parslow, vice president of Harris Healthcare EMEA, has called for the NHS to embrace open source technology. Now NHS England is promoting the benefits of moving in this direction but Parslow warns that we must walk before we try to run

A new and frenzied debate has opened up in the world of healthcare technology- should NHS technology be open source?

A move to open source would potentially mean vast reductions in licence fees for the NHS, the ability for the NHS to develop systems to their bespoke needs, no more supplier lock-in – which results in NHS organisations struggling to get the IT products they use to work with another supplier's – and of course, no need for "one size fits" all contracts such as we saw with the National Programme for IT.